Drought of vision

Maharashtra is on the verge of  drought due to very low rainfall in the month of June.And unless compensated by a good amount of rainfall in the rest of the monsoon season it would turnout to be a worst drought since 1971. What pains me,which also establishes the utter incompetency of our political establishment to deliver, is that we are not prepared for a mere 15-20 days delay in the onset of monsoon.What if monsoon refuses to give rain in the rest of the season?Even such an imagination is horrible.Can we afford to take nature for granted? Some irregularities,uncertainty is bound be there.
Then what did the Govt did in all these years? Did the Govt was constrained by cash-strapped? No.In fact in the last decade[2000-2010] the govt of Maharashtra spent a huge amount of 70,000 Crore rupees on irrigation,but the result is an increment of mere 0.1 % [from a meager 17.8 to 17.9 % ] in irrigated land. So the problem lies elsewhere, poor governance!
Our energies,money and time is over-obsessively driven by large irrigation projects.'giganticism' is the problem.The research literature,world over, on the water management has established that watershed development and micro-irrigation is the key.
Another thing which we has to accept is that we can not increase the rainfall.We has to manage with what we get.One interesting fact is that the total rainfall in the konkan region is almost equivalent to what the rest of maharashtra gets. But the unfortunate thing is that substantial amount of water in the konkan goes to the sea. It is high time that we harness environment-friendly technology to transfer the surplus amount of water in the konkan region to the rest of maharashtra.But it requires political determination and visionary leadership.

The Kudankoolam Row: Dissent and Democracy

The Kudankoolam Nuclear project in TN is stalled due to prtotest.Jaitapur could not take off for the same reason.In the past the Vedanta mining project,Orissa,could not be realised owing to same reasons. The real controversy was sparked off by the PM Manmohan Singh when he said, "....there are NGOs, often funded from the United States and the Scandinavian countries, which are not fully appreciative of the development challenges that our country faces." Without going into the merits of what Mr PM has said, I  see these developments from a different perspective.
'What is the space for dissent in a Democracy?' is the moot question. Whether throttling of dissent is justifiable in the guise of 'development?' In a democracy like ours we cant sideline these questions.
 'development' is a  relative term. Therefore it is bound to have different voices. Reconciliation is the function of democratic politics. Attributing 'motivation' to the dissenting voice is anti-democratic.By attributing 'motivation', Mr PM, probably wants to prejudice the minds of public in large, thereby wants to escape from the labouring task of what Bismark said,"politics is the art of the possible"
Pratap Bhanu Mehta has rightly said that--“The prime minister unwittingly showed what a banana republic India can be. If a few crores here and there, given to NGOs which have no instruments of power other than their ability to mobilise, can bring this country to a standstill, then we are indeed in deep trouble.Banana republics are more paranoid about dissent than self-confident democracies.”

Intellectual Frontiers of Naxalism!

"The genesis of Naxalism is the Mantralay in Mumbai"--this according to Dr Abhay Bang,who has been working in the field of community health for 25 years in Gadchiroli district,is the cause of the problem of naxalism. Dr Bang was speaking at the 85th Akhil Bhartiya Marathi Sahitya Sammelan in Chandrapur, on the border of naxal-affected Gadchiroli district in Vidarbha.

With due respect to the Doctor this line of thinking is materially flawed. No doubt the naxalism had its roots in the oppression of tribals and peasants. But ‘Allegiance to the armed struggle and non-participation in the elections’ is the motto and core ideology of the naxalism which is the extremist form of leftist movement. Under the garb of " people’s government" it vowed to wage armed war. If today, Naxalism is considered as the greatest internal security problem and Naxals claim to be running parallel government in different parts of the country, its credit mostly goes to the PWG,whose proclaimed philosophy is "The People’s War based on Armed Agrarian Revolution is the only path for achieving people’s democracy i.e. new democracy, in our country."

[Flawed] policy decisions and apathy of bureucracy towards tribals ,for the sake of arguement,may justify its birth.But its "Continued Existence" have no raison d'etre.Even if the said cause of genesis of naxalism as given by Dr.Bang is rectified it would not be going to subside the naxalism. Simply because the naxalism has nothing,at least no longer, to do with plight of tribals and peasants. Either way naxals want to overthrow the parliamentary democracy established by law to be substituted by "The Dictatorship of Proletariat."

The reasoning given by Doctor may seems innocuous, as there is no gainsaying the fact that the pathetic attitude of the govt has not changed. But the point is that it is not. Such theory put forth by Intellectuals like Dr Bang do provide the idealogical base to the naxalism, eventhough in the instant case Doctor may not have such intention. Real threat is not from the violent deeds of naxalites which can easily be dealt with an iron hand. The Idealogues of naxalism are the real danger posed to the society buttressed by the "Guilt Complex" of middle class.

A collective failure of Govt on 2G!

Supreme Court has cancelled 122 2G licences granted during the tenure of former Telecom Minister A. Raja declaring it as “illegal”.The Supreme Court said the allocation of 2G spectrum under Mr. Raja was “wholly arbitrary, capricious and contrary to public interest apart from being violative of the doctrine of equality” to “favour some companies at the cost of the public exchequer”.

Once again 'The Custodian of The Constitution' lived to its expectations and uphold the national interest. Our Supreme Court is one of the best and finest institution across the globe.The Best men are doing the best job. His Lordship of the Supreme Court Justice Krishna Iyer once said "Sans the Supreme Court, beyond doubt India will face functional chaos under the shadow of criminality. Satyameva Jayate will have to surrender to corrupt power syndrome. "

I can not conclude without referring to Dr.Subramanium Swamy , whose perseverance has brought the whole 2G scam to the fore. Swamyji has long been fighting like a one man army to bring the real culprits to the justice and to lay open the truth behind the said scam.

It would b like misleading ourselves if we infer that the only culprit is Mr. A Raja. It is the "collective Responsibility" of the UPA. Swamyji has rightly remarked that it was collective failure of Government.

Free thoughts for Denocracy

“I do not wish to get into the controversy whether banning him was correct or not.” These are the words of His Lordship Justice Katju,who is also the Chairman of Press Council Of India,when His Lordship was asked to give opinion on whether Salman Rushdie be banned or not.I was stunned by these words.I was stunned because these words come from the mouth of His Lordship who is supposed as well as expected to throw his weight behind "The Right to Express one's thoughts".The most important thing,if the Democracy is to stay and flourish,is that even if we dont agree with someone's views we must not gag him,rather it is our duty to protect him from any probable attack.His Lordship must be aware of what one great political thinker once said that “I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it." This is the soul of Democracy. I take this opportunity to cite the quotes of His Lordship J.Katju. His Lordship while noting that democracy and science should go hand in hand, he said "scientific growth requires certain supportive values like freedom to think, to criticise and to dissent, tolerance, plurality, and free flow of information.These precisely are the values of a democratic society." Are You listening My Lord.